Category: Social Media Tips

Affiliate marketing is one of those avenues of blog monetization that you want to hit from all angles. Often it just brings in little drops of income, but each of those drops will fill a bucket and can turn into a lucrative income stream. So outside of blog posts, you need to make sure you are capitalizing on affiliate linking in your social media strategy: Enter Pinterest.

Pinterest had previously put a ban on affiliate links, but in 2016 they lifted the reins and opened it up again to affiliate linking.

If you haven’t been capitalizing with affiliate links on Pinterest yet, now is the time.

What exactly do I mean when I say affiliate links on Pinterest? Well, I’m not referring to pinning photos from your own blog posts that have affiliate links in them. I’m talking about pinning product images on Pinterest and embedding your direct affiliate link into that pin. When a viewer on pinterest clicks on that product pin, they are taken straight to the product’s website via your affiliate link (and not to your blog).

Pretty sweet, right? We all know that there are tons of folks out there browsing Pinterest for inspiring things to make and buy.

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Alright, let’s walk through a quick tutorial and show you how easy it is to embed affiliate links on Pinterest.

How to Embed Affiliate Links on Pinterest:

Step 1 / Find Product

First up is to find the product you’d like to pin. For this example, I’m going to pin some super fun oversized gold clips from Urban Outfitters.

I go find the product on it’s website, and usually there is a pin-it button somewhere on that page. With Urban Outfitters, you can see that there was a pinterest button on the far right side of the page, and also one that appeared when I hovered above the image.

Step 2 / Pin Product

Click on the pinterest button to pin the image to pinterest.

Fill in the description so that it represents what the product is all about. Throw in as many keywords as you can into the paragraph to increase the chances of that pin being found in a search.

Also *always* make sure to put in your affiliate disclosure into the description of the pin, to comply by FTC guidelines. Something like [affiliate] should be sufficient.

Then choose the board you want to pin it to (if you’re with Tailwind*, you could schedule the pin using their “schedule” button like you see beside the search bar in my example pic, but I’m going to proceed with this tutorial as though you were just pinning it normally).

Step 3 / View Pin

Right after you have pinned something, a screen will pop up that shows other boards where that same pin lives, but in the bottom right hand there is a red “See It Now” button. Click that button!

Do it quickly, since it disappears quickly.

Step 4 / Edit Link

Then you’ll come to this screen, which shows your pin and a few different options.

Click on the “Edit” button in the top left corner.

This second screen will pop up, which gives you the field where the URL for the pin lives. You can see right now that it’s directing viewers to the urban outfitters link where I got the product image from.

So instead of that link, I replace it with my affiliate link that takes the viewer to the same page.

To get your affiliate link, you’ll need to login to whatever affiliate network you work with and get your URL. I use RewardStyle, but you might be with ShopStyle Collective, Affiliate Window, CJ Affiliates, etc. Here is a blog post that outlines a bunch of affiliate agencies and the brands they work with.

Also know that at this time as far as I know, you are not allowed to use Amazon Affiliate US links on Pinterest (something to do with Amazon’s Terms of Service).

That’s it!

You have officially done an affiliate pin.

Oh and I should mention – you don’t have to use the brand’s product photo. If you have an amazing original photo that you took yourself of the product, then totally feel free to use that one instead!

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A few things to remember:

Imagery:

One of the big “rules” of creating a great Pinterest feed, which encourages followers, is to have an overall aesthetic to your boards and pins. You want to curate a beautiful experience so when someone lands on your pinterest page, they are immediately drawn to it (if they share the same interests/style!) and follow you.

Keep this in mind when you are pinning affiliate stuff. Don’t pin it just for the hell of it. Make sure it stays true to your look and feel.

I always try to keep to vertical images, so a lot of times a products image just won’t work well with Pinterest. Even if I love the product, if the image isn’t good for Pinterest, I don’t bother.

Don’t bombard:

As with anything, don’t go overboard with this. I don’t have a formula and there isn’t a hard and fast rule, but I keep my affiliate pins to a certain small percentage of my overall pins.

Mix It Up:

You could create a board that was something like “favourite rugs” or “throw pillows” and pin a bunch of affiliate ones in there, but I personally like to mix up my affiliate pins throughout my main boards. For example, I could pin a product image of a gorgeous marble and wood cutting board into my kitchen design board. Or a gold toilet paper holder into my bathroom design board.

Do whatever feels right for your Pinterest feed, and then go in and monitor how your affiliate pins do a few months down the road. Maybe the ones mixed into your main boards will get more repins, or vice versa. Then build on whatever works.

I started doing affiliate links on Pinterest just a few months ago, so I don’t have a lot of data to report back on about whether it’s been very lucrative for me yet, but I’ll keep you posted on how it goes! The thing about Pinterest is that it only takes one pin to go kinda viral, and you may bring home some serious bank.

Let me know if you try out the tutorial, and how affiliate links on Pinterest do for you!

Want more? You might also be interested in:

If you have wanted to try a pinning scheduler, you’re in luck. I put together a comprehensive BoardBooster tutorial. I have used both Boardbooster and Tailwind, and I honestly can’t live without Boardbooster.

This post has a bunch of affiliate networks to join, if you aren’t a part of many yet. You’ll be able to get affiliate links for a huge variety of brands, like Etsy, Target, Lowe’s, West Elm, and more.

This last post goes over affiliate marketing strategy. If you’ve just been willy nilly inserting amazon affiliate links here and there into a few posts, have a read through this one to get a whole lot more strategic and purposeful.

When you are trying to grow a blog and build a business, creating community is one of THE most important things you need to do. Having a posse of fellow entrepreneurs is not only going to help you promote your site, but also to collaborate with others, get advice, share strategies, and stay motivated. I have found one of the very best tools for doing this is through Facebook groups. Facebook wasn’t where I expected to meet others and connect, but it has REALLY worked for me.

About a year ago I joined a whole bunch of groups, weeded out the ones that didn’t do much for me and were overrun with spammy promos or lacked content, and now am active in a handful that I personally love. If you are a blogger, especially one in the design / DIY / home niche, then I really recommend you join these groups. I can safely bet that they will soon be your go-to spots for advice on all things blogging biz!

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1 / Home and DIY Bloggers Biz Chat

Is it totally tacky to start with my own? OH WELL.

Yep, this is my Facebook group that I love and nurture like a baby.

This group is meant for all the DIY / design / home decor bloggers out there. It’s niche-specific, not spammy, and doesn’t have a geographic restriction to it. If you are looking to collaborate with other bloggers, get advice, share your posts in our weekly thread, and build your community, this is the spot. The group is dedicated to chatting blogging biz strategies with bloggers in your same niche – so the advice and tips will be really actionable and relevant.

Oh and I pop in every week for “Biz Tip Tuesday” on Facebook Live. So you get to see my face once a week and chat blogging biz with me. It’s so much fun – I love connecting with you this way!

2 / Blog + Biz BFFs

Blog + Biz BFFs is hosted by Melyssa Griffin. She’s the gal behind Pinfinite Growth – my fave online course that details how to grow your Pinterest and use it as a blog traffic machine! The group is meant for bloggers of all niches. It’s active with good threads but also a lot of questions and comments being regularly posted. Because it’s such a big group, there is always someone in there that is going to be able to help you out if you have a blog question – especially if it relates to creating digital products, online courses, email marketing, etc. Even though it’s a big group, I find it’s moderated really well.

3 / Savvy Business Owners

This group is THE spot for any female entrepreneur. It’s hosted by Heather Crabtree and is full of super supportive women who help each other build their businesses. It isn’t specific to bloggers, but any entrepreneur will get a ton out of this group. I have posed questions in here before about all kinds of things from looking for feedback and advice on something I’m working on, to where to find certain products for my etsy shop, and always get amazing responses. You kinda feel like you get a big ol’ hug in this group – it’s just THAT nice.

How to join: You need to be a business owner (make sure you have your blog/biz listed in your facebook profile), and then sign up for Heather’s email list here in order to join. Once you’re signed up, she sends you a link to join the facebook group.

4 / For Love + Money

Caitlin Bacher hosts For Love + Money. It’s an active group with lots of great chatter, but is specifically useful for tips and resources on how to use instagram and facebook groups effectively to grow your audience and make sales. This group isn’t just for bloggers – there are other types of creative entrepreneurs – but I find a lot of the information is still valuable and relevant to bloggers.

How to join: Request to join the group here. There is also a free instagram course that Caitlin offers – so be sure to check that out. I signed up and got some great tips.

5 / Photography for your Blog + Biz

This group is hosted by Chaitra from PinkPot. It’s a group dedicated to photography and visuals, which is a bit different from the rest. Chaitra is an amazing photographer. She hosts weekly threads that include sharing your own stuff, what’s on your to-do list, tipday tuesdays, etc.

6 / Blogging with Becky and Paula

Becky and Paula both run successful blogs, and then got together to run their own site dedicated to helping other bloggers grow their own blogs and businesses. This is a large group and I would say has a lot of bloggers in the mom/parenting/lifestyle areas (based on the threads I read in there), but I do find that there can be helpful tips and good advice. Becky and Paula themselves regularly post tips and share strategies in the group.

7 / Blogging Boost

Blogging Boost is a huuuuge group and spans any topic imaginable when it comes to blogging, so sometimes things might not apply or be a little random, but it can be a useful place to get blogging-specific advice or tips.

8 / Blog Beautiful

Blog Beautiful, the group by Marianne of Design your Own Blog, helps creative female solopreneurs create beautiful online appearances that match their unique work and personalities. Marianne shares resources, tutorials, and threads in her facebook group that focus on blog design. So if you have a wordpress plugin question, advice on a logo, whatever, this is your spot!

Also, if you need more info and guidance on how to design a beautiful blog, Marianne has a stellar eBook, ‘Blog Beautiful’. Seriously, all the info you need on building a gorgeous site for yourself!!

9 / Blogging Over Breakfast

Gina from the Shabby Creek Cottage runs this Facebook group. She pops in live all the time to dish out blogging tips and advice and it is a really great spot to connect with other DIY and home bloggers (since that’s also Gina’s niche!).

10 / Mind Blowing DIY Bloggers of Awesomeness

This group is specifically for DIY bloggers. I wouldn’t call it a very active group, but if you are looking to get a specific DIY question answered, this is your spot! There are opportunities posted in here occasionally from brands looking to partner with DIY bloggers or from other bloggers looking for other DIY blog posts to feature in round-ups.

I have mentioned on numerous occasions about how much I love Boardbooster.

I would marry it if I could…. It’s THAT good 😉

What is Boardbooster?

Boardbooster is a tool for scheduling your Pinterest activity.

Boardbooster changed the game for me. I went from having this super overwhelming Pinterest strategy that I couldn’t keep on top of (who has time to pin a zillion things everyday?!), to a system that runs on auto-pilot, brings in a vast majority of my blog traffic, and has meant a steady increase in Pinterest followers. It was the first scheduling tool I invested in for my blog, and has been hands down the most worth it. And it’s really inexpensive – plans start at $5/month and go up to $30/month.

I wanted to share all the details on how I setup Boardbooster, because it can be a little daunting to setup at first. It’s not a super intuitive or pretty software to use, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy peasy.

FREE Pinterest Workbook:

Before I dive in, I wanted to make sure you grab this Pinterest workbook. It goes through the key strategies you need to put in place to increase your Pinterest following and boost your traffic.

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3 main features of Boardbooster:

Campaigns –> Pulls random pins from a given board and pins them to multiple other boards (good for pinning to group boards)

Using these tools from Boardbooster is going to make you look active on Pinterest while saving you time, helping drive traffic to your blog from your pins, and ensuring that you continue to get followers on Pinterest. You want to use all three of these features to have a solid pinning strategy, so I’m going to go through each feature below.

You want to appear as an “active pinner” and look good to Pinterest so that they re-pay the favor and put your pins higher up in their “smart feed”. In order to appear active, make sure you pin every day (there is debate on how many pins – but I would say no fewer than 15 and no more than 100), and be sure to pin a mixture of your own content AND other peoples content.

Free Trial of Boardbooster:

You can try Boardbooster out for free through my affiliate link, and then sign up for one of their monthly plans (starting as low as $5/month). Honestly, it’s the best money I spend for my blog traffic.

How to Set Up Looping:

Looping is the bomb. At first I was skeptical because I didn’t think re-pinning stuff I had already pinned made a lot of sense, but then I realized that only a small number of my followers would have actually seen all those pins (kind of like how only a small percentage of your followers actually see each of your facebook posts) and they were stellar pins, so it made sense to recycle them up to the top of my Pinterest boards. It also meant that I could attain a certain number of pins a day, without having to spend a my whole life on Pinterest.

Here is how to get it all setup:

Go to your Boardbooster Account > Pinning Tools > Looping.

Click on “Add Boards” and a pop-up like the one below will appear. It will give a list of your boards. All of my boards were setup for looping except this holidays board, which is why that’s the only one you see in my pop-up below. Click on the board you want to setup for looping and hit ‘Continue’.

This screen is the next one that will pop up. These are the settings for your board looping. It’ll be preset to loop 1 pin/day at 8:00am.

If you want to loop more than 1 pin per day, then click on “multiple pins per day”. Input the settings you want. I have it set to 2 pins/day and like them to occur at random times between noon and 10pm, which is the more active time of day for my followers on Pinterest. I like that it loops chronologically, so it’ll take my oldest pins on that board and loop them up to the top. You could set this to random if you preferred, though. You could also switch up the timing and the days, if you didn’t want it 7 days/week.

The “deduplication” is so that you don’t end up with multiples of the same pin. If you select “enabled” for automatic deduplication and then set the number of days below (in this case 5), what that means is that after 5 days Boardbooster will delete whichever pin has fewer re-pins. So it’s constantly weeding out the lower performing pins and making sure you don’t have duplicates. I really recommend you keep this setting on so that you don’t have to go back and manually delete duplicate pins.

“Protection for viral duplication” is a feature that is there in case you end up having two pins that both get really high re-pin numbers. You can set it so that it doesn’t auto-delete one of these pins. The idea here is that you might move one of those viral pins to another board. I keep it disabled as I don’t find it necessary and even if my pins do well, I don’t plan on moving them to other boards, so I would prefer for Boardbooster to just delete whichever one has under-performed.

“Protection for pins with comments” is a bit similar. It means that it won’t delete any duplicate pins if they have comments on them. Having comments and general interaction on your pins is a marker of a “good pinner”, which makes you look good to Pinterest, so up to you if you want to enable that one or not. I personally just keep it disabled.

Click “submit” and that’s it! You’ve just saved your looping campaign. You can always easily go into any of those campaigns and change out settings if you want to down the line. Repeat this process for all of your active boards. Just be sure that the boards you are looping are nice and full of pins already – you don’t want to be looping like only 15 pins through a board as it would be too repetitive.

How to set up Scheduler:

Even though you loop pins, you also want to make sure you’re regularly adding new pins to your boards. This is where the scheduler comes in. What it does is creates secret boards that correspond with each of your public boards, so that you can fill up the secret boards with pins that get dished out over time.

So for example, I have a secret board for my DIY Projects board. When I sit down to do some Pinterest browsing, I just pin whatever DIY projects I find and love into that secret board. Then I have it setup so that it pins 2 pins a day from that secret board onto my public board. By doing that plus the looping, each of my boards gets some level of activity every single day, and I don’t have to stress about finding all new things to pin all the timeSometimes I’ll get a notice from Boardbooster that one of my secret boards is empty, so I know to focus on filling that particular one up.

Let’s get yours setup:

Go to your Boardbooster Account > Pinning Tools > Scheduler.

Click on “Add Boards”. This screen will pop up, listing all of your boards (including group ones). Click on the board you want to setup for scheduling and click “Continue”.

You will come to this screen where you can configure your settings. I tend to do 1-2 pins per day for each board, and again edit the time to be a bit later (noon till 10pm). Once you’ve set everything, click “submit”.

It will “think” for a sec and “talk” to your Pinterest to setup that secret board. Once finished, this screen pops up. Next time you go into your Pinterest, you’ll see a new secret board that will have the same name as your public board but with a “-” in front of it. That’s the board that you want to fill up with pins.

Once you have set up all of your boards for scheduling, you’ll have a dashboard that looks something like this. If you want to edit settings for any of them down the road, you can easily go in and do that.

How to set up Campaigns

Campaigns are useful for pinning to group boards. The idea here is that you can setup pins to go out from a source board to one or more group boards.

This screen will pop up. I’m just going to go over random campaigns, because I find them more useful. Feel free to do more reading on the scheduled campaigns over on the Boardbooster website. Click “Select” for Random Campaign.

This next screen will pop up. Say one of the topics you blog are DIY holiday projects and want to create a campaign for those posts. You might name it “DIY holiday projects” and then add your source board. If you have a board that is dedicated to just your holiday projects already, then use that, but if not, create a secret board where you fill it up with those posts. You will likely do this for all the broad level categories you blog about. For example, I have several secret boards that I title “MY BLOG – ___”, with the type of posts to fill in the blank. So, “MY BLOG- DIYs” and “MY BLOG – blogging biz posts” and “MY BLOG – interior decor shots”, etc etc.

Once you’ve chosen your source board, then you select the target boards you want those pins to go to. In this example you can see that I have told my secret biz tips board to repin to 6 different group boards I’m a part of related to that topic. You can vary how often a pin gets pinned to those boards, and so you can be sure to regulate how many you have going through (some group boards will have rules on this).

Click on “save” and you’ll be all setup! I recommend watching how your pins do in those group boards and adjusting them as necessary. If a group board isn’t doing much for you, leave it. And don’t be spammy with your group boards either. Overall you don’t want to only be pinning your own content – Pinterest doesn’t like that- so keep group pinning somewhat limited.

Adding your New Content

The last thing you need to think about is making sure to add your latest content to Pinterest on an ongoing basis. So whenever I publish a new blog post, I pin the relevant images to any appropriate boards, including my secret boards that are for campaigns.

Phew!

Hopefully that’ll save you some headache when you sign up for Boardbooster (I went through some trial and error trying to figure it all out!).

Like I said, Boardbooster has been a game changer for me. I SOOO recommend it!

If you are a blogger or online business owner of any kind, I really hope you are using Pinterest. It is a major game-changer. It can be a HUGE traffic generator for a blogger in any genre – you just need to have a few strategies under your belt to use it effectively. If you understand how set up your Pinterest properly, your audience will grow exponentially and you’ll be able to drive lots of traffic to your blog or biz.

I had been blogging for 5+ years and used Pinterest haphazardly … mostly for personal use. SUCH A MISTAKE! At the end of 2015, I decided to spend some time amping up my Pinterest game. I purchased a course on Pinterest by Melyssa Griffin. Melyssa lays things out in such an easy to understand way, with step-by-step instructions on what to do. She provides an exact system that you can implement to utilize Pinterest to drive loads of traffic to your blog. She offers a free Pinterest webinar, which you should totally sign up for!

Between implementing her tips, reading tons of blog posts on using Pinterest, and just good ol’ trial and error, I 5x my Pinterest following in about 3 months and increased my Pinterest referral traffic to my blog by about 300%. I’m totally regretting not paying attention to it sooner!

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5 Strategies to Grow your Pinterest Traffic:

Here are 5 strategies you can implement TODAY to improve your Pinterest branding, be seen, and gain followers.

1 / Amp Up Your Pinterest Profile

That short little area at the top of your Pinterest page is super important. It is your one place to sell yourself!

Have a stellar profile picture that is bright and profesh. I personally like a headshot over a logo – folks are more likely to feel connected to you that way.

Next up, make sure your description explains exactly what you blog about. Be sure to include keywords in here that people might use to find you. For a home and DIY blogger, you might include “DIY projects”, “interior design”, “decorate” or “home decor”.

Your profile is also a great spot to include a link. You should already have a link to your blog under your main Pinterest name, so this is a good spot to promote any kind of opt-in incentive you might offer to get people to join your email list. Building your email list should be a constant goal!

2 / Pin For Your Target Market

You need to consider your Pinterest page as part of your overall brand, instead of as a personal bulletin board.

I made this mistake for a long time and had boards like “Maya’s first birthday” or “Our hallway” that had images in it just for me. Utilize the secret boards feature for that sort of thing, and instead keep your public boards dedicated to your audience.

You need to be pinning what your target market want to see, and always have them in mind. Every single pin should be something that your ideal reader would want to see.

3 / On Point Board Branding

When someone visits your Pinterest page, they are making a snap judgment very quickly about your style. They will see your top 10-12 boards, those cover images, and likely decide right then and there about whether to follow you.

You need to make sure that your boards appear cohesive and fit your overall brand. Aim to stick to an overall aesthetic with all of your board pins, so that you develop a branded, cohesive look.

Tanya from Dans le Lakehouse does this really well. As soon as you land on her Pinterest page, you have a very clear sense of her style — and fave color! Yep, the girl is a true-and-true turquoise lover.

4 / Better Board Descriptions

Rather than being funny or catchy with your board titles and descriptions, you need to think about showing up high in searches. Name your boards with an accurate title of what they include. For example, “DIY project tutorials” instead of “things to try”. You need to be thinking about search keywords when creating your titles.

Then go in and edit your board descriptions, too. Again, you want the descriptions to include any relevant keywords that are appropriate to your board. For example, on my kitchen design ideas board I have the following words in the description: home decor, kitchen inspiration, decorate, decorating, chic kitchens, IKEA kitchen, kitchen decor, DIY, interior design, kitchen DIY ideas, scandinavian, modern, bohemian, eclectic.

And don’t forget to also make sure you have selected the right category from the drop-down menu when you are creating your boards.

5 / Add a “Best Of” Board

As a blogger and biz owner, you want to make sure you are showing off your own fabulous work. Have a board dedicated to your blog as your very first board, and fill it with the best images from your blog posts. This helps show visitors right away what you’re all about and they get to easily dig into your best posts.

You can see an example of this on my girl Amy’s Pinterest page. That first board you see is dedicated to pins from her own blog.

These are 5 simple things you can implement right away. Once you do, you’ll suddenly have a way more professional Pinterest page that people are going to want to follow and repin from.

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Enter your email below to get instant access to a cheatsheet and workbook that will help guide you through your Pinterest branding. I am gaining a minimum of 1000 new followers every month by implementing these techniques and you totally can too!